


Season of Love

by alexcat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 17:22:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17430254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexcat/pseuds/alexcat
Summary: Bucky and Steve find one another once and again.  A tale of two Christmases.





	Season of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamerfound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamerfound/gifts).



1940, Brooklyn, New York

“Steve, let me in. It’s cold out here!” Bucky was freezing. Christmas morning arrived with snow and subfreezing temperatures. 

Bucky knew that Steve probably didn’t have heat in the tiny little apartment he’d kept since his mother had died. He sold his art here and there and washed dishes at a hospital for just enough money to pay the rent. There was little left for heat or food. 

Bucky was not letting his best friend stay here alone on Christmas day. 

The door opened and the diminutive Steve was dressed in perhaps all the clothes he owned, layered over and over. He had a scarf around his face and all Bucky could see were his eyes. 

“Come on! Ma sent me over to bring you home for dinner!” 

“Bucky, I don’t wanna impose.” Steve was always so damned afraid he’d put someone out. 

“Ma ain’t gonna let me eat if you don’t come with me! Come on.”

“I need a bath and clean clothes!”

“Bring the clothes. We got a warm place to take a bath and lots of water. I’m not leaving you here.”

Steve saw that Bucky meant business, so he got some clean clothing and locked up. He went back in and grabbed his sketchbook. They made their way to Bucky’s warm home. 

Bucky’s mother heated water for Steve to bathe and she made sure he had plenty to eat for Christmas dinner. Bucky gave him some new pencils and a new sketchbook for Christmas. Steve had done beautiful pencil portraits of Bucky and his sister for their mother. 

Steve insisted on going home after dinner, so Bucky grabbed a bucket and filled it with coal from their pile. 

“What’re you doing?” Steve was getting that stubborn look. 

“I’m going to stay over, so I’m taking some heat.” It was the only way Steve would let him give him some of their coal. 

“Jackass,” Steve quipped. 

“Asshole!” Bucky shot back and gently clapped Steve on the shoulder. 

They went back to Steve’s tiny apartment and Bucky put the coal in the little coal stove. It didn’t give off tons of heat, but it was much warmer than without it. 

“Oh, look, I brought chocolate, too.” Bucky pulled two chocolate bars from his pocket. “Ma says if we heat it with this milk she sent,” he said as he pulled a bottle of milk from his big coat, "we can have hot chocolate.” 

Steve made that face, the one that said he didn’t like charity.

“Hey, she wanted me to have some and I want to share.”

They two young men made their hot chocolate and drank it while it was still hot. 

“This is swell, Buck.” Steve smiled. 

“Okay that I stay over?”

“Then you’ll have to sleep with me. Too cold for the floor.” Steve had a bed, two chairs and a table, but no sofa. 

Bucky was not the least bit upset about that, though he couldn’t quite tell Steve. They’d never talked about it, but Bucky, while the whole world saw the girl crazy young man, liked men. He dated all the women for appearances. Sure, he felt them up and did as much as he could get away with, but he wanted men. 

One man. 

His best friend. 

Tiny, frail Steve Rogers. 

They talked until late. Bucky put some more coal in the stove. 

The two men went to bed fully clothed. It was still too cold for underwear only. The bed was just big enough for them both to lie down, but not big enough for them to sleep without touching. This was both good and bad for Bucky. He loved his friend, but loved him enough that he didn’t want his desires to get in the way of their friendship if Steve didn’t feel like he did. 

They wiggled around as much as the bed would allow and finally ended up back to back. 

“G’night, Buck.”

“Night, kid.” 

Sleep came rather quickly to both of them. It was still dark when Bucky woke with Steve snuggled up to him, head on his shoulder and arm across his chest. He never wanted to kiss anyone so bad in all his life. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 

“You okay, Buck?” Steve said quietly. 

“I’m good, Steve. You warm enough?” 

“Like this? Yeah. Really warm.” 

There was something in the way he said it.

“Steve?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you, would you, can, uh, shit. I’m fucking this up!” 

“I’d like it if you’d kiss me, Buck. If, uh, if you think it’s wrong, I’m okay with that, too.” 

Bucky, now that he was face to face with what he wanted, felt panic rising in him. His heart was about to beat out of his chest. 

“I – uh – well -” he stammered. 

“It’s okay. Just don’t hate me,” Steve said in that quiet way he had sometimes, when he was saying something important. 

Bucky kissed him. Words weren’t going to come to him, so he acted. Steve melted into the kiss. Bucky gently rolled him over onto his back and kissed him again. 

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” Bucky whispered. 

Steve was really quiet and Bucky still wasn’t sure what he was thinking, if things were okay.

“You okay?” he finally had to ask. 

“I’d like to touch you – your – your – you,” Steve finished lamely. 

Bucky took his hand and placed on his layer covered hard on. Bucky helped by pulling up his shirt, unbuttoning his pants and opening them. He lifted his hips and slipped his woolen underwear down enough to free his cock. He wasn’t prepared for the warm hand that closed over it. 

“Oh!” was all he managed to say. 

After that, they were lost in one another. Both had gotten their heart’s desire for Christmas. It was the last Christmas they’d be together for a long time. 

*

December, 2016, Wakanda 

A lot had gone wrong in Steve’s world over the last few years, but Bucky was alive and safe. 

“You must come to Wakanda for the holiday. Many of our people celebrate your Christian holiday along with our own holiday.” King T’Challa had become a friend when he took Bucky to Wakanda to keep him safe until they could help him overcome his HYDRA brainwashing and be sure that he was all Bucky Barnes. “Bucky is doing well these days and has asked that you come see him.” 

He sneaked into the hidden realm a few days later. 

Bucky lived in a goatherd’s hut out in the countryside. Steve followed the map and walked there. His heart pounded as he approached the hut. There he stood, strong and tall. His long hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail and he wore no prosthetic at all on his missing arm. He waved at Steve when he saw him come in sight. 

Steve moved faster, finally running at the superhuman speed that he could achieve. 

He grabbed Bucky and hugged him, swinging him around in a circle. 

“I’ll get dizzy and throw up on you like you did me at Coney Island,” Bucky said, laughing. 

Steve set him down and hugged him properly. “How are you, Buck?” 

“I am better. I am me. I remember.” 

Steve wasn’t sure what that meant. They had been lovers for a short year before the war had separated them and they’d reunited for a time when Bucky joined the Howling Commandos. Bucky had shown no indication in this time that he remembered or that he was interested in being Steve’s lover. 

Steve chose to pretend that they were simply best friends. Bucky would have to tell him if he wanted more. 

“Come inside. It’s not as primitive as it looks.”

The hut was powered by solar cells and had a stove, fans, lights, everything modern. It just looked like a relic from days long passed. 

“Are you going to stay for a few days?” Bucky asked as they went to his table. He grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge. “They make the beer here and it’s very good.”

He held one bottle against his body with his arm, opened it with his one hand and handed that one to Steve. He repeated the process for himself and sat. 

“I’d love to. I’ve been on the run for a while. Ever since I left you here. Natasha, Sam and I have been doing a little off book work, but we still have to stay under the radar.”

“I like Sam,” he laughed. Sam had given him hell when the events in Berlin had happened. 

“He’s a good man. So are you really herding goats?” 

Bucky laughed. “Actually? Yes. I do other things. I train. I run. I read. It seems I have a lot to catch up with, too.”

They spent the day catching up, but neither gave any hint they had ever even been lovers. As the sun set, they sat on the porch of the hut and looked out at the golden sky. 

“Steve, I remember it all,” Bucky said quietly. 

“Do you feel differently now?” Steve had to ask. It would break his heart, but to have Bucky back at all was a miracle so he would live happily with that, if that’s all he got. 

“God, no. I never stopped loving you. I think that’s why I pulled you from the water, why I followed you around. I still knew deep, deep inside. Do you? Still love me?”

Steve was on his feet and lifting Bucky from the chair. Neither of them was small or weak now. They kissed, expressing a lifetime of waiting in that kiss. This time, though, they didn’t have to hide.

“I know the perfect place,” Bucky told him breathlessly. “Hang on one second.” He disappeared into the hut and came out with a quilt. “Come on!” Bucky ran to a large tree and spread the quilt under it. He hurriedly removed his own clothing then began to tug at Steve’s, with a little help. 

“Goddamn, squirt, you’re gorgeous,” Bucky told him as he put his arm around Steve and leaned close for a kiss. 

They eventually lay on the quilt and made love, feverish and hungry at first then slowly and deliberately later, as full dark descended on Wakanda. 

“Merry Christmas, Buck. I never thought I’d get to say that again.” 

Bucky snuggled close. “Do you remember the first one?” 

“Every day of my life, Bucky. Every single day.” 

They would spend many more together, each as happy as the one before.


End file.
